Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations Biology 12-2001 Mindful Virtue, Mindful Reverence Ursula Goodenough Washington University in St Louis, [email protected] Paul Woodruff Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/bio_facpubs Part of the Biology Commons, and the Ethics in Religion Commons Recommended Citation Goodenough, Ursula and Woodruff, Paul, "Mindful Virtue, Mindful Reverence" (2001). Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations. 84. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/bio_facpubs/84 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Biology at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Biology Faculty Publications & Presentations by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MINDFUL VIRTUE, MINDFUL REVERENCE by Ursula Goodenough and Paul Woodruff Draft of article published in Zygon 36: 585-595 (2001) Abstract. How does one talk about moral thought and moral action as a religious naturalist? We explore this question by considering two human capacities: the capacity for mindfulness, and the capacity for virtue. We suggest that mindfulness is deeply enhanced by an understanding of the scientific worldview, and that the four cardinal virtues – courage, fairmindedness, humaneness, and reverence – are rendered coherent by mindful reflection. We focus on the concept of mindful reverence, and propose that the mindful reverence elicited by the evolutionary narrative is at the heart of religious naturalism. Religious education, we suggest, entails the cultivation of mindful virtue, in ourselves and in our children. Keywords. mindfulness, morality, religious naturalism, reverence, virtue ethics INTRODUCTION This essay represents an intellectual and spiritual collaboration. Goodenough is a cell biologist whose recent book, The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), explores the religious potential of our scientific understandings of nature and 1 advocates an orientation called religious naturalism. Woodruff is a moral philosopher whose recent book, Reverence (2001), explores the concept of reverence in the context of virtue ethics. Since reverence is often invoked in The Sacred Depths of Nature, it became apparent that we were pursuing a similar quest, and further conversation has led to the crafting of this shared perspective. The core question we will consider is: How does one talk about moral thought and moral action as a religious naturalist? Scientists are expected to approach this question in a scientific fashion, and many have done so. From such research have emerged such useful concepts as kin altruism and reciprocal altruism, concepts that use genetic and game-theory algorithms to describe how we negotiate the allocation of favors and retribution (Ridley, 1998). But most people, including most of the game-theory scientists themselves, understand that these economic algorithms are not what we seek as religious persons. Rather, we seek ideals and values. We want to understand how best to be good. We want to know what to say to our children. In this essay we first consider the human capacity known as mindfulness, and suggest that the development of mindfulness is a precondition for morality. We next consider the human capacity known as virtue, and suggest that a morality based on the development of mindful virtue is an approach that seems particularly compatible with religious naturalism. We conclude with a focus on 2 the virtue reverence, and propose that the pursuit of mindful reverence is fundamental to the moral life of the religious naturalist. MINDFULNESS IN THE RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS To get into thinking about mindfulness, we can start with Aristotle. Aristotle begins his treatise on Metaphysics with a strong assertion: “All human beings by nature reach out for knowledge” (Metaphysics 1.1, 980a21). Most of us, if asked to give a description of human nature, would probably include something along these lines in our response, and indeed, it is embedded in the biological name we have given to ourselves, where the sapiens in Homo sapiens means “having wisdom.” Wisdom and knowledge are entailed by mindfulness, but we suggest that mindfulness demands more of us. Mindfulness is knowledge or wisdom that pulls the whole mind-and-heart of the knower towards a connection with the way things are in all their exciting particularity. You cannot be mindful and know things in a purely academic way; as you become mindful of something, your feelings and your behavior towards it will not be untouched. Mindfulness is both a state of mind and a practice. The practice, popularized in the west by Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, is summarized by his famous epigram “Washing the Dishes to Wash the Dishes” (Nhat Hahn, 1975, p.3). That is, one trains oneself to keep one’s consciousness alive to the present reality, to focus attention on the here-and-now, on the miracle 3 of the soap and the water and the dishes and the process, rather than rushing through the chore mindlessly to get to whatever is next. In his sutra on Mindfulness (Satipatthana Sutta, reprinted in Nhat Hahn, 1975, p. 111), the Buddha refers to mindfulness as one of the enlightenment factors, along with such others as joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. The mindful person, Buddhism tells us, assumes the attitude of pure observation, freed from all false views, and apprehends a reality that is not only objective but also becomes subjective. The mindful person really really sees. Three features of mindfulness are encountered not only in Buddhist thought but also in the writings of the ancient Greeks and the Chinese Confucians. First, mindfulness is described as a path, a work in progress, rather than as an endpoint or achievement. This is because the mindful person is prepared to perceive each particular situation in its uniqueness and respond to it appropriately, while knowledge (as the ancient Greeks understood it) aims at grasping universal principles and applying them uniformly in all cases. Aristotle's concept of practical wisdom (phronesis) is an ethical sort of mindfulness. It is a kind of wisdom because it is a capacity to get a great many things right, and it is practical because it is the link between our minds and our moral character. He tells us that mindfulness, so understood, entails a long process of living and choosing, a process that develops a person’s resourcefulness and 4 responsiveness (Nussbaum, 1986, p. 305). And Confucius, in the course of describing the various life stages leading to sagehood, offers a wonderful epigram, variously phrased as "At sixty, my ear was attuned," or, "At sixty, my ears became subtly perceptive" (Analects 2.4,Translations by Simon Leys 1997, Chichung Huang 1997). Second, mindfulness is described as “freed from all false views” (Nhat Hanh, 1975, p.56). Pure observation, the perception of reality, cannot occur through the lens of one’s own needs, biases, and prejudice. Rigidity, dogmatism, and fundamentalism are fatal to mindfulness from one direction, while inattention, fickleness, and carelessness can destroy it from another. Aristotle tells us that mindfulness is constantly evolving, ready for surprise (Nussbaum, 1986, p. 305). And third, mindfulness entails an immersion, a personal appropriation of reality. Aristotle describes it as a complex response of the entire personality; Thich Nhat Hahn writes that when we practice mindfulness of objects outside ourselves, the knowledge of these objects becomes mind (Nhat Hahn, 1975, p. 46); and the Confucians tell us that we must attain a deep personal understanding of our own being and the being of others if we are to respond faithfully to their reality. What is sought, they explain, is “self-transformation through a personal grasp” (Kalton, 1988). 5 The fascinating concordance between Greek, Indian, and Chinese perceptions of mindfulness, as sketched in the above passages, is especially remarkable given that they were originally articulated thousands of years ago and independently of one another. To us this indicates that we are considering a facet of human aspiration that is of fundamental importance. The quest for mindfulness, we would say, is a core human hope, a core human ideal. MINDFULNESS IN THE CONTEXT OF RELIGIOUS NATURALISM In the broadest and deepest sense, the “naturalism” part of religious naturalism is all about mindfulness. Scientists, trained in a particular kind of “pure observation,” have provisioned us with stunning understandings of the natural world, and these understandings then provision the religious naturalist with countless substrates for mindful apprehension. So, for example, mindfulness of the body is no longer just about breathing and walking as in the original Buddhist practice; we are now able to contemplate as well the molecular and genetic underpinnings of the body and its evolution from simpler forms. When the Dalai Lama visited Washington University several years ago, he insisted on a visit to the neuroimaging laboratories where brains are being analyzed as they think and feel. There emerged a photograph of the Dalai Lama in his robes talking with the neuroscientists in their lab coats. An icon to mindfulness. 6 The religious naturalist is called to be mindful of the following understandings from biology: • Mindful of our place in the scheme of things • Mindful that life